1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to retail environments, and more particularly to location determination systems and methods in retail environments.
2. Description of the Related Art
Retailers are constantly searching for new ways to enhance a customer's shopping experience, increase the customer's satisfaction and promote customer loyalty. Self-shopping enables retailers to introduce technology that improves sales and cuts costs by allowing customers to take charge of their own shopping and enjoy the experience. Self-shopping solutions enable shoppers to obtain the information they need without the help of a store associate by accessing in-store devices, displays and kiosks. In some instances, the customer may obtain this information directly on a custom mobile device or on their own personal device (e.g., smartphone) while the customer is inside or outside of the store.
Some of the offerings include applications that enable mobile shopping, product location, price confirmation, gift registry and self-checkout. All of this functionality may be accessible through an in-store communications system (e.g., Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth®), which allows shoppers to receive specific store or product information as well as in-store promotions.
One of the benefits of self-shopping is a fast checkout process which allows the customer to “pre-scan” the items they are purchasing with a portable device (such as a custom self-shopping device or a smartphone) before they approach the register. For example, customers may point a machine-readable symbol reader of a portable device at a product machine-readable symbol (e.g., barcode) and click on a button to scan the symbol, which then shows a description and the price of the product on a display of the portable device. While shopping, customers may also be able to check a list of all products previously scanned and may have access to an up-to-date total of their purchases, additional store offers, promotions and discounts. When a customer's shopping is completed, they simply go to the checkout and pay using self-payment kiosks without having to remove any of the merchandise from the cart or bag. This reduces waiting times considerably.
In self-shopping environments, it is often desirable to track the location of customers as they move through a store or shopping center. For example, it may be desirable to provide customers with directions to products, or to provide customers with information or promotions relating to products that are located nearby.
Generally, real-time locating systems (RTLS) may be used to automatically identify and track the location of customers in real time within a store or other shopping environment. By “real-time”, it is meant that response times are within a predetermined time, and are negligible or within an acceptable tolerance with respect to the rate of change of the position of the items to be located. Wireless RTLS tags may be attached to objects (e.g., custom self-shopping devices, smartphones, tablet computers) or worn by customers and, in most RTLS, fixed reference points referred to as readers or anchor nodes receive wireless signals from tags to determine their location. The physical layer of RTLS technology is usually some form of radio frequency (RF) communication, but some systems use optical (e.g., infrared) or acoustic (e.g., ultrasound) technology instead of or in addition to RF.
Generally, available spatial location technologies are characterized by different performance factors, such as accuracy, range, passive/active behavior, etc. Each technology may have its own advantages and drawbacks that may match the requirements of a particular application.
In particular, Wi-Fi® based locating systems are suitable in asset management applications where a ranging accuracy of 4 to 5 meters is acceptable. Wi-Fi® based locating systems have an advantage in terms of infrastructure costs, as a Wi-Fi® network is normally already available and shared between many applications.
However, Wi-Fi® based locating systems may not be suitable as a location technology for self-shopping applications, in which there is a need for greater ranging accuracy (e.g., less than 1 meter) in determining the location of a self-shopping device or a portable device of the customer. For example, a “position aware” messaging system may need to send a consumer marketing information when the consumer is in front of the products being marketed.